In
his
excellent article on The
Defenders
of the Earth, extrapolating from Art
Bollman's
account of an earlier team by that name, Greg Gick explains that
the Flash
Gordon portrayed in that cartoon (who seems to be in his thirties in
2015) is
the descendant of Raymond "Flash" Gordon who saved Earth from Ming
the Merciless in the 1930s. However, he does not go into much detail
about what
this Gordon was doing before he and his son Rick joined the Defenders.
The
assumption seems to be that the Gordon family have been living on Mongo
all
this time.

This
is not
true.

While
Flash I
did stay on Mongo for quite some time, he and Dale eventually decided
their
kids should grow up in a "normal" environment. They returned to
Earth, although Flash would periodically visit Mongo.

Many
years
later, after Flash's death in circumstances I have not been able to
uncover,
his grandson William Gordon followed in the family footsteps by joining
the US space programme. He
married fellow astronaut Katheline
Rogers [1] and, in 1981 they had a son, Ray Gordon,
who was
soon nicknamed "Flash"[2].

In
1996, NASA
found evidence that Ming the Merciless was once more attempting to open
a
space-warp between Mongo and Earth. Apparently, since the first Flash
had left
the planet he had managed to reconsolidate his rule. William Gordon
was,
naturally, assigned to deal with the situation. The NASA base he was
working at
arranged for the teenaged Flash and the base commander's daughter,
Andrea Dare,
to be flown to safety. Instead, however, they crashed outside the home
of
eccentric scientist Dr Starking [3].

Dr
Starking, a
former student of Hans Zarkov, had also recognised the Mongo space
warp. Being
less heroic than his mentor, he was working on a method, not of taking
the
battle to Ming, but of escaping the situation altogether. Instead,
however, he
inadvertently took them all to Mongo. (It is possible that Flash seized
control
of the vessel from Starking and flew to Mongo over the scientist's
protestations.) Flash and Andrea destroyed the space warp but
they, and
Starking, were now trapped on Mongo.

Over
the next
year, Flash and Andrea would become members of the resistance group
that
battled Ming's rule, befriending Prince Talon of the Hawk People (the
son of
King Vultan III and the great-grandson of the Vultan the first Flash
knew) and
Princess Thundar of the Lion People, descendent of Prince Thun. Flash
would
also form a cautious friendship with Princess Dyna, Ming's youngest
daughter [4].

Starking,
seeing himself as the teenagers' guardian (a role he resented, but was
not
quite so cowardly as to relinquish), also reluctantly joined the
resistance,
although his priority remained finding a way of returning to Earth. He
was
aware that his charges had no interest in returning home until they had
helped
their friends, but felt he would cross that bridge when he came to it.
(It may
also have occurred to him that, given the planet's natural hazards and
Ming's
ruthless regime, a camp of armed resistance fighters was possibly the
safest
place on Mongo).

The record of the rebellion
ends abruptly but,
given later events, it is evident they eventually succeeded in
destabilising
(but not vanquishing) Ming's rule. What happened to Dr Starking and
Andrea Dare
after this is unclear. It seems likely that, with the rebellion mostly
successful, Starking would have convinced himself that Flash and Andrea
no
longer required his "protection". Once the equipment he needed to
return home was in the hands of the resistance, he probably volunteered
to
assure the Gordons and Dares their children were safe.

Information suggests that
Andrea began a
relationship with Prince Talon. However this cannot be
corroborated and her
later history is unknown. If true, they presumably settled in the SkyCity of the Hawkmen, actually
known to
Mongovians as Thanagaria [5].

We
do know what
happened to Flash, or at least can guess. He settled on Mongo and began
a
relationship with Princess Dyna. By now (2004) he must be 23. He and
Dyna are
married and Rick is beginning to crawl. Eventually, within the next ten
years,
Dyna will be killed by her father's forces, her consciousness preserved
in the
crystal that will become the centre of the Dynak-X computer, and Ming
will make
preparations for one more attempt at conquest.

And
once again,
Flash Gordon II will find himself leading a movement against Ming the
Merciless. One of eight, defending the Earth...

NOTES:

[1] Who also had a familial interest in space travel, being
related to
Anthony "Buck" Rogers, and knowing his future history.

[2] William Gordon had a brother, who was also nicknamed
"Flash". He was a quarterback for the New York Jets. Whilst he may
have been a partial inspiration for the 1980 "Flash Gordon" movie,
there is no evidence he ever travelled to Mongo.

Incidentally, the Gordons have
always been
noted sportsmen. The original Flash Gordon was, of course, a polo
player and,
at the time of his first trip to Mongo, the younger Ray Gordon was a
noted
skateboarder. There is also Barbara Gordon; a champion gymnast, before
finding
another use for those abilities, until they were taken from her. There
is also
another Flash Gordon, a basketball player with the Boston Celtics who
sold his
image to DC Comics for their "Flash Gordon" title. (I have been
unable to find his relationship to the other Flashes... but an awful
lot of
sportsmen named Gordon get that nickname).

[3] The animated series based on these events gave the names
of the girl
and scientist as Dale Arden and Dr Zarkov. This, of course, was an
attempt to
suggest this was "the" Flash Gordon. Andrea Dare was a distant
relative of the British family that would eventually produce Captain
Dan Dare.

[4]
For the same reason given above, the animated series called her Aura.
Aura was
Dyna's much older sister.

[5] This information comes from a Hawkwoman named Kendra Hol,
who
arrived on Earth in 2000, acting as a crime fighter in New Orleans and claiming to be
Talon's cousin, the
daughter of Hawkguard Katar Hol and Vultan's sister Shayera. However,
her
information is suspect, as it was later revealed that she was part of a
group
of renegade Hawk-People planning their own invasion of Earth. This
invasion was
stopped with the aid of Superman, Batman and Kendra herself. Her
current
whereabouts are unknown.